4.1 Urban Economy and Role of the Town
Sawla town is administration and trade center. The agricultural and hand crafts from the surrounding area has made the town hot business center. The town has a market meeting on Thursday, Saturday and Monday on these days there are lots of trade activities in the town. There are nine small hotels, 19 restaurants, 32 breakfasts, 11 pensions, 135 retails trades, 66 boutiques, 18 shoes and leather shops in the town.
There is Commercial Bank of Ethiopia with capital of 26million birr and Omo Micro financial institutions giving services in the town. Omo micro financial institution has provided a loan of 1.1million birr to 127 borrowers. The average annual revenue of the municipality within the 2007/08 – 2010/2011 period was 3, 222, 717.20 Birr.
The data obtained from the town shows that between the years 2004-2012, the town has organized 125 Micro and Small Enterprises of which 32 are engaged in construction, 35 in manufacturing, 13 in urban agriculture, 28 in soft drinks and catering, two in hand crafts and 15 enterprises in trade. Of the total 650 MSE members 436 were males while 214 are females. These enterprises have created job opportunities for more than 95 peoples while their capital has currently reached 7,048,847.00 Birr. Of the total Micro and Small Scale Enterprises 59 have shifted to medium enterprises.
The data shows that about nine investors are involved in different manufacturing and service provision sectors with the capital of 25.4million birr and six of the investors have completed construction and they have started production by creating job opportunities for 883 peoples. Two of the investors are undertaking the process of constructing while the other has not started yet. For the future the town has prepared 3781.7 M2 of land that has facility of road, electricity, water and telephone.
Sawla has urban-rural economic linkages with the surrounding areas. The town gets grain products such as teff, peas, bean, maize and the like, livestock supply, natural resources and extra labor from surrounding areas, agricultural inputs, manufacturing and commercial products from Addis Ababa, Hawasa, Arbaminich and Sodo while the town distributes these products and services to the surrounding areas and rural kebeles.
